Total ridership on Milwaukee’s downtown streetcar system topped 100,000 for the first time last month.
The Hop saw a total of 103,625 riders in July, averaging 3,343 riders per day, according to its website. Those numbers are the highest ever recorded in one month for the public transportation system since it officially opening in November.
July’s total ridership was a 30 percent increase from the previous system high of 80,361 during The Hop’s opening month.
July also brought in a single-day high of 8,968 riders on Saturday, July 13 during Bastille Days.
As two of the city’s largest festivals, Bastille Days and Summerfest had a significant impact on the Milwaukee streetcar’s ridership totals during late June and all of July.
Between June 26 and July 14, the date covering the opening of Summerfest and closing of Bastille Days, The Hop saw an average of 3,821 riders per day, said Mayor Tom Barrett last month during a press conference.
Barrett earlier this year put forward a $52 million spending plan that calls for the streetcar to be extended to the intersection of Vel R. Phillips and Wisconsin avenues by next summer, including $5 million for a public plaza across the street from the Wisconsin Center. Barrett’s plan would alsoand to continue planning efforts on extending the system in the Bronzeville and Walker’s Point neighborhoods.
The common council has not yet voted on the spending plan. Some aldermen are pushing to include an initiative to prevent displacement and gentrification in the neighborhoods where the streetcar would be extended. Others say want the streetcar extended even further into the Walker’s Point neighborhood than the proposed terminus at the intersection of First Street and Pittsburgh Avenue.
